The Princes’ best friend Guy Pelly discusses the royals, and a run-in with the
police over his former Sloanes club Public, as he prepares to open a new
nightclub, Tonteria

Guy Pelly is a bit suspicious of the press. The best friend of Princes William and Harry, he was recently awarded £40,000 by News International after it admitted hacking his phone and wrongfully accusing him of supplying Harry with marijuana. Then there was the time he was invited to Las Vegas under the auspices of opening a nightclub, where the “host” turned out to be the “fake shiekh” of News of the World infamy, duly rumbled by Pelly when he started discussing his royal chums.

The 30-year-old, understandably then, doesn’t really do interviews, but he is charmingly cautious rather than obstructively so. He’s not at all the spoilt, stuck-up toff I had expected from his ruddy-faced photographs, in which he usually poses with a couple of shirt buttons undone.

But Pelly is at the very heart of the innermost of circles. Is it a bit like belonging to MI5, I ask? “Maybe I do,” he laughs. “And you will never know.”

He is funny, Guy Pelly, though not in a smarmy way. He is sweet, unassuming, the antithesis of the medallioned nightclub owner who has a bikini-clad girl on each arm. Actually, he looks a little like a cherub dressed in a smart suit – he jokes that he got into the club business so that he could finally be allowed into one. He is soon to open a new venue – his last one was shut down by narked-off neighbours, more of which later – which will have a Mexican theme, and they will serve tequila the proper way, which is to say, chilled on ice.

Pelly is the undisputed King of London nightlife, in part because of his connections, but also because of his keen eye for detail. It was Pelly who dreamt up the Treasure Chest at his former club Mahiki, a £100 lethal cocktail that was notoriously favoured by both William and Harry. After Mahiki, he set up Public on a residential road just off the King’s Road. It was an instant hit with the Sloanes, who loved the fact they might bump into the Princes, or if they were out of town, then the Princes’ other halves, whom Pelly often escorted in their absence.

There was a photo booth, silly fancy dress, and a VIP area known as the “sweet room” because it was decorated with old jars. But there was also a lot of noise, and – say neighbours – behaviour that was not becoming of the kind of people who have been expensively educated and have several barrels on the end of their names.

Used condoms were found on the street. There were complaints of fighting, vomiting, urinating “and other anti-social behaviour”. A police spokesman even went as far as to describe the club as the area’s “number one crime generator”. The council revoked the club’s 2.30am licence, imposing a 12.30am closing time instead. In May, Pelly shut it for good. When he talks about it, he sounds as if he is speaking about a beloved dog he had to put down.

“We were sort of overwhelmed by how popular it was,” he says. “We probably did too good a job of putting out the word and saying 'There’s an exciting new thing coming up.’ So we literally had thousands of people turning up in the first few weeks, and it was December, so people were arriving who had been drinking all day at office parties” – the idea of anyone in Public having a job is faintly amusing – “and after the first month the damage had been done with the residents. But if I worked for the council and had seen hundreds of people on the streets, I would probably have done the same thing.”

The lure, of course, was the chance of a visit from the young Royals, though Public also attracted pop royalty in the form of Katy Perry and Pixie Lott. When Pelly opens his new venue in September, maybe he could bar Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge? “What?” he laughs. “And make it the only bar in the world which they’re banned from? I think that would work!”

Pelly is said to have organised the Duke’s stag do, and his recent 30th birthday, but he quite firmly doesn’t talk about his famous friends. “Even journalists have stopped calling me when something [to do with the Royals] happens. I’m always the last to find out the news nowadays.”

His last girlfriend was Susanna Warren, the leggy young daughter of John Warren, the Queen’s racing manager. But they broke up two years ago and there are now rumours flying around on Twitter that he is dating none other than Cheryl Cole. But Pelly’s lovelife, like his friendships, is a case of “no comment”. After all, you don’t stay in the royal circle if you have a big mouth.

The son of a car dealer, Pelly grew up in Kent. He has two older brothers and met the Princes while out hunting. His mother, Vanda, had a leg amputated below the knee after being involved in a motorbike accident while she was in Florence in 2003. “She’s an artist. She really wanted to get better, so she got a trike, you know, one of those three-wheeled things with an exhaust at the back, and she shipped it to Australia and went around the entire country on it. She’s quite rock and roll, Mum.”

Was he worried about her? “No, not at all. I’d be less worried about her if she was bungee-jumping in the Amazon than if I called her up and she said she had nothing on. We’re quite similar in that we both always have to have a new project on the go.” His work ethic has paid off. While he may have fabulous connections, he is pretty much self-made – £1million was invested in Public, which Pelly has made back, and then some.

Pelly, who lives in Notting Hill “sort of”, studied land management at Newcastle University, and it was here that he discovered his love of the drinks industry, working for much of his course as a bartender. After graduating, he got a job in a pub in Acton (possibly the least glamorous part of London, if not a close second to Brentford) and then Fulham (that’s more like it). It was while working at a bar in South Kensington (perfect) that he met the nightclub owners Nick House and Piers Adam, who spotted his talent and took him to Mahiki. The rest, as they say, is nightclub history.

Pelly confesses that, one day, he wants to get into the hotel business. His hero is Nick Jones, the man who created Soho House. “I met him once, right at the beginning of working at [another of his nightclubs] Whisky Mist, when it wasn’t properly complete, and I was so embarrassed.” He puts his tiny hands to his face.

His new venture is to be called Tonteria – that’s Spanish for “place of little significance”. Ho, ho, ho. “I don’t like places that take themselves too seriously,” he smiles. It is right in the hustle and bustle of Sloane Square, so there are barely any residents to worry about this time, and talks are under way with a “high-profile chef” whom I am not allowed to name.

One of the features Pelly really wants is for there to be a train that drops the drinks off at the tables, but the designers said they probably couldn’t do it. “And I said to them, if they can put a man on the moon, then we can probably make a train that serves tequila.” If anyone can, it is Pelly.